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Salvatore plucks my phone from my fingers and puts it in his pocket. “Just me.” He puts me down and opens the passenger side door. I look at him once I’m in the car. His fingers dust my collarbone. “Just me.”

“Just you.”

Chapter

Three

Poppy

Day 4 (PS)

I don’t like being awake. It means I have to be the grieving widow. When I dream, I get to be the girl in love and he’s not fucking dead. I turn my phone over in my shaking hand, rereading Mark’s text, hoping this time the shaking will stop.

MARK: I have no words for you. Only a pledge to bring down Enzo. You were the light of his everything. Know that. I can’t bear to be there today even though I’ve lost a brother. This day is for you and the 5.

It’s of no comfort to know the FBI is hunting Sal’s nephew for his murder. It’s a murder. That’s a word that exists in my life.

Everyone except the ten of us and their significant others have cleared out of the Gelbert Family Winery tasting room to give me space. Like they know what I need. I don’t, how do they? I grew up in a village of people who love me and fill in most of the spaces of everything. My mother brought us to her ancestral home in Sonoma to live on her family’s vineyard when I was six months old. I haven’t had a moment alone since. I never met my grandparents or my father. But I’ve missed neither, given the generosity and love of the ‘five’.

Five close winery families who not only raised their children together but grew up together themselves. Friendships between our parents date back to before we all existed.

I’m sitting in a building that’s in my blood and I’m hollow. I wanted his funeral reception to be here. I wanted it in a place I’d always have to return to instead of some banquet hall that would be turned over for a retirement party later in the day. This place, the tasting room, will never change, and it will always be here.

My sweet restaurant staff, who catered this, are milling about. David, my cousin, is topping off everyone’s wine and then he hikes himself up onto the tasting room counter and sits next to Sam Langerford. Both attractive men cut a handsome path for themselves in the wine industry. I think about them, so I don’t think about him.

David has a lot of his life together, and Sam doesn’t. Sam never bounced back emotionally from when the love of his life ghosted him years ago. He’s different now. Will I be? Will this all change me? Sam was funny, gregarious, and sweet. He was shaggy around the edges and resembled Winnie The Pooh, often forgetting pants after a night of drinking too much. Now, he’s all sharp angles and rock-hard muscles with a jaw and a temper that are both so defined it’s painful somedays. He carries an edge of an asshole these days.

Will I be different in the after? His salvation is working with wine and the winery he owns with his four best friends, the group that are the same age. Will I find the love of work again? I don’t want to cook. Ever.

They’re a couple years older than I am and right now Josh, Sam, Baxter, Tabi, and David form a protective circle around me as I glance around the room. They’re the core of who we are, but even as I feel like a satellite in their orbit, I know I’m the eye of this hurricane. Because I was younger, I always felt on the outskirts of their bond, so living with Sal on the edges of our worlds seemed normal to me. Even though it might have been in my mind, it still felt as though I was a touch out of step with this world. There’s so much love in this room, but I can’t feel it. I’m numb.

I swing my head like it weighs 1000 pounds to catch Sam’s eye. My voice is rough, as if it’s been nicked and cut up. “Hey, Sam. Does the pain of being left go away?”

“Yours might. You at least have closure.” He doesn’t hesitate. His pain is always on fucking display.

I raise my glass to him. Everyone is talking around me but not to me. I get it. There’s a lot of shit that’s come to light, and I’ve dealt with none of it so I could get Sal buried.

Everyone waits for me to say something else. I’ve never been one to shy away from attention or talking. I’ll give them this, the things I wish I could have said at the service, but I wasn’t brave enough. After a glass of wine and way too many Gougères, I think I can now.

“Our story lived underneath all of yours.” Everyone’s faces snap to mine, and I grin a sad smile. My eyes mist over, but I keep going. I only want to tell this once to my large family. Most people would look at everyone in the room and be struck by the overwhelming number. But this feels intimate, having grown up with this collective.

“We were there for the beginning of all your beginnings, living and growing in the underneath. We met at Longhouse when he came to yell at Josh. You know that, though.” The couples snuggle closer, and I resent their breath. But I push on because that’s a silly thing to hate.

“Our first kiss was when you were all at the LaChappelle/Whittier member party, the last one where everyone was there.” They all nod. “You know, back when you all thought Sal was the villain.” They smile like it’s a joke, but it was true.

Becca scoots closer and takes my hand. She didn’t used to be affectionate, not until her man, Brick, showed her how.

“I was the reason he was in town for the all hands-on deck meetings or in your lives at all. His business with Josh passing and the bond remaining. I held Becca’s hand when Brick walked away to finish his business. Every life event I missed of yours, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays…I was with him. I was always in contact with his FBI handler, Mark, and have had a constant shadow since we fell in love. For the safety of everyone in this room and for him, I remained as hidden as we could make me.”

I grin at my trained sous chef, who carries a Beretta and can bench press a car. They all turn to look at him and nod in recognition. They don’t know that my next-door neighbor of six years is lethal as well. Will Enzo hunt me? I have all the money and own Raptor Industries. Am I a loose end? Or is Enzo happy with all he’s gained from Sal’s death? He’s in charge now. He doesn’t need whatever I’ve inherited. I know there are men around the perimeter of this place, but what’s their purpose now that Enzo’s blood lust has been satisfied?

I sip my water and look into all their faces as none of them say a word. Just let me speak.

“I was in all the places you saw him, and he overlapped in your lives. Jims and Evan don’t know this, but we kind of share a wedding anniversary. I know you officially got married months after the shower, but we stole your officiant from your joint shower. He was there just hanging out, not doing anything, so he married us. We missed the karaoke ‘N SYNC performance that night. My apologies.”

Baxter yells, “Not accepted.”

Everyone smiles at the forced joke. I can see it’s humor but I can’t find the laugh. “Did you know he sang? All the time, any song he could think of. Our first dance when we got married was to him singing The Way You Look Tonight.”